Such an arrangement is needed for example for data transmission via glass fibers or optical fibers. The semiconductor circuits arrangement can be designed to be the receiver or the sender. A receiver comprises for example a photodiode and a transimpedance amplifier which acts as a preamplifier. The semiconductor circuits in a sender can be a laser diode and a driver circuit. Since the difficulty of constructing corresponding arrangements is about the same in all cases, the following considers a receiver of optical signals comprising semiconductor circuits and is representative of all other applications.
In the technology of today electronic semiconductor circuits are produced on so-called wafers. These are relatively thin disks that are cut from a block of suitable semiconductor material. Suitable semiconductor materials are for example silicon, gallium-arsenide and indium-phosphide. Special processes are used to produce a very large number of semiconductor circuits on such wafers, which are generally identical. In addition to the active (semiconductor circuit) surfaces constructed in this manner, electrical contacts are also produced, which are connected to the active surfaces and are used for example to electrically connect corresponding semiconductor circuits to a leadframe, to a supporting substrate or to a supporting circuit board. To that end the well-known technology uses wires made of a material that has good electrical conductivity, for example gold or aluminum, which are connected to the contacts of two semiconductor circuits for example by means of electrically conductive bonding (DE 43 10 170 A1). During a fast data transmission at frequencies in the GHz range, such wires may cause interference and thereby create signal distortions which can lead to unusable i.e. non-interpretable signals.
The above mentioned DE 34 09 146 A1 describes an arrangement described as an opto-electronic module wherein at least one amplifier element is integrated on a substrate made of semiconductor material such as silicon for example. The substrate has an opening into which a light modulator, such as a solid-state laser for example, is inserted. It is cemented for example to the substrate in the opening. A bonding wire connects the light modulator to an amplifier element of the substrate in an electrically conductive manner. The production of this known arrangement is expensive. It can only be used with vertical light incidence. As mentioned above the bonding wire may cause interference, particularly at very high data rates.